[Movies] Proof (2005)

There are those movies that you promise yourself to one day see but for some reason you never quite get around to it. Even if it starts showing on cable TV or you happen to have a copy of the DVD, it just seems to linger there and you still don't quite get around to seeing it.

I hate it when that happens - seriously. Worse, it seems to happen most for movies that I'm bound to like but remain sort of uncertain and so I keep delaying the decision to go see it. In the meantime I pass the time with all these more useless movies that just annoy the heck out of me and make me lose more faith in the dwindling creative potential of Hollywood.

But then that day eventually comes when you break the dead lock and finally find the time to go see the darn movie that's been evading your attentions for so long. You may end up disappointed given the length of time that has passed may have inevitably hyped it up too much. From personal experience, I find that I end up really liking the movie since it becomes somehow more fitting to see the movie precisely when I do, for whatever reasons there may be as related to my life at the time.

This was one of those movies for me.

[Movies] Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (2009)

Ron Moore's reimagination of Battlestar Galactica was a landmark creation that helped bring science fiction to a broader audience and give hope to other science fiction fans that there was hope yet for the genre. In a time when major science fiction serials like Star Trek weren't at their best, to have a show like this come along and bring new life to science fiction entertainment was quite the relief.

Of course when the show ended with four power-packed seasons, a lot of us BSG fans were left wanting more. Naturally Hollywood won't let such a marketable franchise disappear into the vast darkness of space just yet, and thus we've seen new BSG-related projects like the potential TV series Caprica and then of course movies like this one.

[Games] Machinarium

The casual gaming market is pretty much dominated by arcade-style games that rely on a player's skill in an environment not entirely dependent on story. Hence the reason it's casual - it's something that doesn't require long term commitment that becomes easy to leave at any time in order to return to your primary task (i.e. the work you've been putting off by playing a game) and pick up again quickly when you have time again.

The casual gaming market has grown significantly because of the easy promotion granted by joint efforts like Yahoo! Games and MSN Games, but other genres have practically died out at the same time due to lack of popular interest.

So when my partner managed to find this interesting little adventure puzzle game, I was pretty surprised and quite happy to see an actual adventure game on the market. And even better, it turned out to be a pretty good game to boot.

[Comics] All Star Superman

I was never really big Superman fan. I’m sorry, but I’m just not. The guy is practically omnipotent in superhero terms apart from the weaknesses to Kryptonite and magic. He can fly, he can shoot heat vision beams out of his eyes and he can freeze things with his breath. He has super strength and is invulnerable to harm. Heck, he even generates some sort of a protection field around him, thus the reason his clothes hardly every get damaged in fights. The guy is just too perfect to be really fun as a hero.


And yet Superman will always have such a major fan following and I doubt that DC Comics will ever truly get rid of him as a character. They tried that a few years back and of course eventually brought him back to life despite supposedly dying. What can I say? It’s a comic book thing after all, and DC doesn’t have the sole license on doing that.

So I guess it takes a lot for me to really appreciate a Superman story, whether in the context of a group like the JLA or as part of a major multi-title crossover, and yet this particular title managed to remain pretty interesting.

[Movies] (500) Days of Summer (2009)

Over the years, I've grown to be quite the sucker for the art film and those films which try to emulate the style of an art film. You know what I mean - the movies that seem pretty common in terms of appeal but tweak their stories so they can get into film festivals around the world, thus somehow earning that artsy kind of label. I know, it's not a precise way of classifying these movies, but given the modern context, that's generally how these movies have turned out to be.

You can name major indie hits like Juno or sleeper drama hits like Crash and The Constant Gardener - whatever it is, by now you should have a decent enough idea of what kind of movies I'm talking about. I guess it's more because of their focus on the value of the story itself and the need for skilled storytelling as opposed to big name actors or amazing special effects. The movies don't even need to have to discuss a major news event or something of that kind - it just has to tell the story well.

Oh, and it needs an awesome soundtrack, too.

[Movies] Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

My budding love of the Blues as a genre of music combined with my appreciation for the various incarnations of Saturday Night Live over the years inevitably lead to me enjoying the Blue Brothers. From their zany sketches to their first major motion picture, I totally loved the comedic duo no matter how absurd the situations they found themselves in happened to be.

Now such movies from the world of Saturday Night tend to remain as one-shots with little potential for advancement. Sure, they're funny but they tend to be just an "okay" level of funny and rarely generate the kind of income needed to warrant a sequel of any kind. So it's rare when such movies manage to reach the point of a sequel such as the Wayne's World movies.

Then there's this movie, which continued the grand tradition set by its predecessor - the need to enjoy good music while still laughing at itself and the absurdity of it all.

[ImprovEverywhere] Grocery Store Musical

Thursdays are all about television and theater here at the Geeky Guide and it looks like we have yet another alternative musical on our hands!

Food Court Musical remains to be one of my favorite ImprovEverywhere stunts. Let's face it - I'm a sucker for musical theater in all its forms! I figured they'd never try to repeat a stunt like that, but I'm glad that I was wrong.

Looks like those crazy kooks at ImprovEverywhere decided to give the surprise musical another go, but this time they used a grocery store as their stage. The song makes a lot less sense than Food Court Musical did, but it's still pretty fun for what it's worth!


Grocery Store Musical

[Firefox] Integrated Gmail Extension

Despite my eternal love for all things Google, I still use Mozilla Firefox as my default browser. Sure, I can certainly appreciate how brilliantly fast Google Chrome is and I'm glad they've worked out the initial bugs the browser had in its early months, but the lack of full extension support always holds me back.

I know, I know, there's experimental extension support currently being toyed with in the developer version of Chrome, but that doesn't account for all the fun bells and whistles I get with the robust library of Firefox extensions already out there on the web.

Today is all about discussing one of my newest extensions of interest that pretty much taps into my love for Google as well.

[Books] Paul of Dune

Despite the fact that books (like movies, comic books, toys and other geeky things of interest) will always be primarily commercial ventures whose intentions are affected by business decisions, marketing directions and the like, no fan ever likes having this concept rubbed in our faces. Yes, we understand that money is important and that sales drives the production of all the geeky things that we love, but it certainly doesn't mean that Hollywood or book publishers or toy manufacturers need to throw away all pretenses of the creative process by totally embracing the commercialism of everything.

Sadly, I can't shake that particular feeling whenever I pick up any of Brian Herbert's Dune-related novels. It's one thing to try and honor the memory of Frank Herbert by presenting his notes in a creative format that fans might appreciate, but it's another to seemingly rape and pillage the estate, create self-serving novels within the original Dune universe just for commercial gain.

Sorry, if I haven't stressed it enough across my various entries here, allow me to say again just how important Dune is to me.

[Movies] Julie & Julia (2009)

It's somewhat ironic that I only got into cooking this year, just as I got around to watching a movie about cooking over the weekend with my partner. My cooking skills are far from amazing at this point but it's definitely a fulfilling project that has proven to be quite enjoyable and it's definitely something I'd encourage everyone to attempt to get into at least once in your life.

Cooking is universal in terms of the need for it but not necessarily in terms of how how often people are comfortable doing it. In this age of instant noodles and ready-to-eat microwavable meals, a lot of people have taken the "easier" route instead of going through the trials and tribulations of learning how to cook. It's sad but true, really.

So I guess this movie became a lot more meaningful for me because of my somewhat personal slant in all this. Just maybe...

[Movies] P.S. I Love You (2007)

Movies of a romantic nature (comedies or otherwise) are not the greatest thing in the world for me, but I do know how to appreciate such pieces as needed from time to time. This has all the more become the reality given my life with my current partner and his rich collection of movies of this nature. I know, it's not a bad thing; it's just different from my usual primary fare of science fiction mainstays.

Let's face it - romance movies are a thriving industry that many people (men and women alike) will cater to whether they actually love the movies themselves or they just use them as a means to get into bed with members of the desired sex (opposite or the fun kind, that is).

This one was a bit more interesting than most, mainly because of the novelty of how the story was carried out. Kudos to the original writers of the book that became the basis for this movie.

P.S. I Love You is the 2007 movie based on the Cecilia Ahem novel of the same name. It starts plainly enough - we as an audience get a glimpse of another night in the life of Holly (Hillary Swank) and Gerry (Gerard Butler) who are pretty much your usual happily married couple. They're not perfect and they have their petty jealousies and other such moments but in the end they just work and you can feel that they love one another. Then we suddenly discover that some time has past and Gerry's dead.

Of course Holly can't quite get over her loss and eventually her 30th birthday rolls along and she's still holed up in her apartment, much to the dismay of her friends and family. As her mother (Kathy Bates) and her friends try to force her out of her funk, a cake arrives with a dedication from her head husband Gerry and a letter explaining this was the first of many letters pre-scheduled for release on her 30th birthday. Thus the movie goes on to follow her various adventures as she tries to follow the instructions in these letters while trying to deal with trying to move past Gerry's death.

Image via Wikipedia

I was initially surprised by the casting of Hillary Swank in the lead role since she's not exactly my idea of a romance movie kind of woman. I guess she's just spent too much of her career in tough, tomboy-ish roles and thus an inevitable typecast has started to form around her. Still, she managed a decent job in the end in portraying the sad widow although I'm definitely not a fan of how she cries on screen. Gerard Butler has already dabbled in such films here and there and has already demonstrated his flexibility in such roles. I guess it just helps a lot that he's pretty charming to begin with and so he really knows how to work over a female audience.

I need not go on overlong about the amazing actress that is Kathy Bates. I'll just note that it's interest how she has evolved over the years to play more of these motherly roles, which she does rather well.

The story as a whole was light, fairly entertaining and overall the kind of nice, warm and fuzzy movie that makes you go "awww..." here and there. It's a pretty good date movie, although any stereotypical guy watching will have to prepare himself for the inevitable comparisons to follow and potential demands from their partners to try to be sweeter or to emulate Gerry more. Yes, Gerry male archetypes are pretty dangerous in these modern times since it really plays to the sensitive male concept.

And personally, I have to admit that I did enjoy it and I don't regret having seen it, so that still says a lot. I'm not sure if I'll go out of my way to see it again - maybe just for Kathy Bates.

P.S. I Love You gets 3.5 letters from Gerry out of a possible 5.

[Blog Action Day] Climate Change

It's that time of the year again, folks - Blog Action Day! And this year's topic is eerily timely for Filipinos like myself - Climate Change. I say this because of the obvious reasons of the recent typhoons Ondoy (Ketsana) and Pepeng (Parma) that have ravaged the country and have caused hundreds of deaths and billions of pesos worth of property and crop damage.

We live in frightfully interesting and unusual times when the weather just isn't the same as it used to be. We're seeing stronger and stronger storms and typhoons around the world with increasing frequency and even the season seem somehow misaligned. Our winters are colder than ever before and last longer than they used to in some places. Our summers have gotten dryer and come earlier than expected and cause massive droughts or killer flash fires.

So yes, Climate Change is a very important topic for discussion and something that we all need to be aware of. More so, it's something that demands true action in these turbulent times and no one country should wait around for the others - we all need to act in order to address the changes in our climate.

For the unaware, Climate Change refers to the gradual shifts and changes in how our weather systems work across the world, something that can be natural given certain factors like shifting tectonic plates or other events of that nature. However in a more modern context, Climate Change refers more to the current shifts in our planet's climate whose origins lie in our own behaviors and industries, perhaps better known as Global Warming.

Image via Wikipedia

A lot of politicians still argue whether Climate Change is real or not, but we know it to be true. We've seen the shrinking of the glaciers and ice caps at the poles and we've observed the increasing rise of sea levels around the world. We've measured increased greenhouse gases in the air along with significant changes in average temperature around the world. More so, we've seen all these more radical changes in weather patterns and storms and typhoons when we were never expecting anything of that magnitude.

There is no one cause to climate change and thus there's no easy fix either. Politicians continue to drag their feet to execute effective legislation directed at addressing this growing threat and continue to focus on irrelevant issues like the protection of major corporations, continuing their wars at home and abroad and other stupid things. In the meantime, things are getting worse a lot faster than they're getting better and a holistic solution is needed soon.

When I talk about a holistic solution, I'm referring to addressing many changes needed across countries and industries. This means capping global carbon emissions, shifting sufficient funds towards cleaner energy solutions and technologies and better educating populations about their role in all this. It means seriously promoting conservatism in everyone's lives and responsible use of our resources.

As citizens, our responsibilities are twofold. First, we need to live more responsible lives, try to save energy and use products that support climate change initiatives. Second, we need to speak to our governments by writing to our officials, participating in legal protest actions and ultimately voting for politicians who are committed to addressing this agenda.

Climate Change is real. The danger is real. Do your part today! Let's fight global warming together as one planet before it's too late!

[TV] Battlestar Galactica: Season 2

When Star Trek really hit it big, the series eventually dominated the airwaves. Let's face it - for the longest time the face of science fiction on television was Star Trek and it was odd to even consider a time without one version of the series actively airing.

Of course that eventually changed and the popularity of the show declined. That left a pretty significant void in the science fiction world. A few series came along here and there but there was nothing quite as epic as Star Trek was at its height.

Then came Ron Moore's reimagined Battlestar Galactica mini-series that inevitably got picked up as a regular TV series for the (then) SciFi Channel. It certainly got a lot of folks all excited and the reception to the first season was pretty impressive. So naturally the show was meant to continue on further given the strong support of a starved science fiction community.

The second of Battlestar Galactica picked up right after the thrilling conclusion of the first run. At the end of the first season, Adama had been shot by one of the Sharon "units" given she's actually a Cylon and naturally this threw the whole ship into chaos. That essentially becomes the main theme for the season - the increasing paranoia that anyone could be a Cylon infiltrator given the discovery that they could insert operatives that deep into the military chain of command.

Image via Wikipedia

Later on, things get even messier when a second battlestar is discovered - the Battlestar Pegasus, under the command of the rather "assertive" Admiral Cain. Given she outranks Adama, she then takes over command of the fleet and naturally this leads to other complications.

Of course there are all the other preexisting plot threads like the search for Earth, President Roslin's fight with her cancer and lots and lots of Cylon goodness all around. Yes, it's certainly an action-packed season.

The tension throughout this season was pretty intense and kudos to the writers for crafting such a complex tale. More so, credit should just go out to everyone involved for making the show feel as real as possible - the vividness of how the show is depicted has always been a major plus point for me. And then of course there's the drums, which deserves to be tagged as a character all on its own.

Of course the addition of Admiral Cain (Michell Forbes) is an amazing character and one who was extreme enough to be interesting but not overly so to make her seem unrealistic. Naturally there's a lot of back story to be discovered behind her actions and the show naturally teases us with bits and pieces here and there in order to explain her complex history and how the Pegasus became the hard-edge ship that it was.

Existing character development remained pretty good too, more so for the slow reveals of additional Cylon models in the fleet. Every time a new Cylon was revealed, it pretty much felt like those other major points in science fiction like whenever Doctor Who goes through a regeneration or whenever the Star Trek crews encounter The Borg or something. It just has that kind of potential every time that it really makes for good entertainment, hehe.

There's a lot of good things to be said about this season despite the odd slow episode here and there. Plus the fact that the whole thing was expanded from how it was run in the previous season really helped things along as well.

Battlestar Galactica: Season 2 gets 4.5 Admiral Cain bitch fits out of a possible 5.

[Philippines] CD-R King

It's interesting to note how stores can start from seemingly useless kiosks in the middle of the mall and end up being major franchises or household brand names some day. It doesn't happen for everyone but it does in fact happen here and there and it's always a treat to see this occur.

There's no surefire way for anyone to determine if a business will succeed or fail, but then it is worth a shot if you really believe in your product or the service you're out to sell. This is probably why we continue to see people selling those bamboo flutes all these years or the never ending run of T-shirts with spoofs of major logos and taglines. They seem like niche businesses, but against all odds they still survive through the years.

CD-R King is a brand name that's pretty much well known to tech fiends throughout the Philippines. I can remember how many years ago it seemed to be just another kiosk selling really cheap CDs and CDRWs as people were just starting to get into backing up their data to discs or at the very least creating their own "mix CDs" to be played in their cars or their portable CD players. Yes, this was certainly a period before the iPod, haha. I could be wrong in my memory in terms of the precise time period, but the general concept of how they started is pretty much there.

Now they carry a heck of a lot more than just discs with different designs for data storage and back-up. Now they seem to have a had in pretty much every single tech accessory or peripheral you can think of. They carry their own brand of MP3 players now along with external hard drives, laptop cooling fans, USB hubs and even their own dance pads for those into those kids of console games. It's practically insane just how many different gadgets they carry and these stores are now pretty much a staple of every major shopping mall in the country.

They're certainly living up to their Vision & Mission about trying to bring media and technology to everyone at affordable prices and frankly the quality of their items is more than decent considering the price.

Supposedly they claim the reason for their affordability lies in not spending on advertising and dressing up their clerks and just focusing on negotiating bulk purhcase deals directly from the factories and primary supplies and passing on the savings to their consumers. It's a pretty practical model (or some would say a very Chinese one) but it's obviously working given how many branches exist and yet there doesn't seem to be an apparent way one can sign up for franchising for this chain. Sheer genius.

Of course, you get what you pay for and the one major drawback of the store is the actual quality of service you get. There's no consistency across branches and many times it gets very tedious to even attempt to purchase anything when there are too many people in the store. But then the deals may just be worth the wait - or you can better time your visits to low-volume periods.

So as far as one-stop media & technology shops go, CD-R King is pretty tops. This isn't quite a formal review but if it were, they'd certainly get a 5 out of 5.

[Comics] Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta

When DC first started releasing books under the Elseworlds banner, it was a pretty interesting concept for sure. While rival titles like Marvel's What If...? explored what might happened if one or two things changed during key events, Elseworlds were complete reimaginations of many of their most beloved characters in strange and interesting ways. It certainly helped enrich the notion of a dynamically thriving multiverse, as has been a common theme across DC stories especially in cases when the fans embraced a particular Elseworlds universe more than others.

So what happens when you merge the Elseworlds concept with a comic book line like Planetary, which already deals with a Multiverse and many alternate realities? Well, you certainly get a pretty interesting tale and one that makes you wonder if it's something that might eventually get included in some potential Planetary story in the sky or just another Elseworlds book that will remain independent of the rest of the DC universe.

Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta is essentially an Elseworlds title that pits an alternative JLA versus an alternative Planetary. Where normally such crossover titles involve the two groups working together to defeat a larger foe, this time around things were reimagined such that the Planetary members were essentially the bad guys while the JLA were trying to find a way to defeat them.

In this world, Planetary pretty much behave in a manner similar to how The Four do back in the primary Wildstorm universe. Of course this time their global archeology missions have affected the likes of the JLA leading to things like the theft of Superman's original spacecraft, the capture and dissection of what could have been Martian Manhunter and the destruction of Themyscira using a space laser cannon of sorts to name a few. Thus we get the rather human-looking Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman meeting in secret in order to find a way to take out Planetary.

I didn't quite realize how much of an alternate reality this story was set in and initially assumed that maybe the JLA just didn't fully understand Planetary and its mission and thus were incorrectly seeing them as bad guys. Of course this wasn't the case as the comic went along and more and more I realized that this wasn't quite the same Planetary that I had been following in other titles. So that's definitely something you'll need to accept as you jump into this book.

Plus you also have to remember that the JLA won't be the usual powerhouses in flashy costumes. Given the interference and manipulations of Planetary during their formative years or during those key moments when they're supposed to discover their powers, they're now pretty much superheroes in hiding and in dire need of finding a way to deal with a group as elusive and powerful as Planetary without tipping them off somehow. This does present an interesting dynamic to things but it takes a bit of a while to really get there.

Overall, the story was just okay and a tad confusing at points. Then again, this is both an Elseworlds book and a Planetary book, so confusion is par for the course. It's not a rock'em, sock'em kind of action title but then what Planetary book is such, right?

Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta gets 3.5 dead alien Lanterns out of 5.

[Movies] The Happening (2008)

There's a very fine line between being typecast and knowing your strengths as an actor. Sure, we see time and time again how new actors are cast and re-cast in movies very similar to their first major blockbuster and this becomes their inevitable trap. On the flip side, there are those who make a conscious effort to stick to movies of a certain genre or archetype since they know they perform well in this arena.

It gets pretty tricky when an actor tries to play against type. Whether he's doing it because he wants to break out of the pattern of typecasting that one normally falls into or he just wants to explore new areas and expand his range as an actor, the results are not necessarily going to be good. In fact, they end up being very hit or miss and usually we as viewers end up paying the consequences of such explorations. Oh joy.

The Happening is the most recent movie of M. Night Shyamalan and the first one to be rated R in the US. It's a sort of horror / suspense film where people begin to start mysteriously dying due to some supposed neurotoxin spreading across the northeastern portion of the US. Among those in the contaminated area is high school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg). Together with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and Julian's daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), they try to escape the spreading plague while trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Now the initial premise was odd enough and you need to add in the fact that M. Night was touting this as a sort of homage to the old horror movies of the past. In fact, he was quoted a few days before the release that "We're making an excellent B movie , that's our goal." That statement felt almost like a last-minute retcon to me somehow given the movie was pretty campy and they needed to make sure everyone knew that.

But it didn't feel like a true homage and somehow ended up handling this angle rather clumsily. It didn't have that feeling of not knowing what was going on or those long stretches of silence where the viewer is left to ponder what was going on for themselves. Instead we had one haphazard moment after another and the whole thing just sort of ambled along as best as it good despite lacking enough legs to stand on or something.

Plus having Mark Wahlberg as a science teacher was just so unrealistic. Some could argue that perhaps he was intentionally hamming up his performance in line with the B movie homage going on but this was well beyond that. I can fully understand why he does so many action movies and why he isn't given long drawn-out speeches. He just has a vocal quality that I found rather annoying - it was pretty whiny and screechy all throughout as if he were still going through puberty.

As much as I respect M. Night's desire to experiment with various movie types and styles, I really wish he'd go back to the kind of quality film making and story writing that he started out with back in the days of The Sixth Sense. His movies made a lot more sense then and his camera angles and shots were just amazing. Now he seems to be getting weirder and weirder and who knows what kind of a movie we're going to end up with next. Oy vei!

The Happening gets 2 nonsensical hot dog references out a possible 5.

[Movies] The Blues Brothers (1980)

I got into Saturday Night Live at an early age because of my father. Sure, the jokes were probably inappropriate for my age at the time, but then I was also watching Monty Python and Benny Hill at the time, so go figure. And thus I've grown up with a lot of those classic sketches forever burned into my memory like The Coneheads, The Church Lady and Hans and Franz.

Yeah, I had a pretty interesting childhood.

Of course when Saturday Night Live started translating some of its sketches into feature-length movies, I doubt that people were all that excited about it. Even fans of the show would have a hard time accepting the possibility that these short sketches could be somehow expanded to cover at least 90 minutes worth of screen time, but surprisingly it did happen time and time again. Sure, they may not be the greatest movies by conventional standards, but that doesn't make them any less funny.

The Blues Brothers movie is all about the very same characters that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd created as a gag for musical numbers for Saturday Night Live. In the movie, Jake "Joliet" Blues (Belushi) has just been released from prison after serving time for armed robbery. He's picked up by his brother Elwood Blues (Aykroyd) and together the two visit their old orphanage as promised to "The Penguin" Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman). They learn that the orphanage will be closed unless they come up with the money to pay their property taxes and thus the pair go on to try and find a way to make the money.

The rest of the movie follows their adventures to bring the band back together and to avoid several adversaries including the Illinois State Police, a mystery woman armed with a bazooka (Carrie Fisher), a Nazi organization, a country band known as the Good Old Boys and many others. This inevitably leads to massive car chase scenes, even larger car crash scenes and lots of sequences involving hordes of law enforcement officials chasing the Blues Brothers.

Sure, the movie had a pretty weak plot, but the real point of the film was to embrace the humours aspect of things and to feature as many musical numbers as possible. The movie managed to squeeze in some pretty amazing musical cameos like Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, James Brown and even had some other notable appearances by the likes of Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg and even Twiggy!

The movie is not meant to be taken all that seriously and it's really just the kind of lighter entertainment that one might want to get into after a long day of heavy number-crunching at the office or something. Plus if you're a fan of good music (blues or otherwise), then this is really a great movie for you.

No, they don't make musical comedies like this anymore. John Belushi, you are certainly missed.

The Blues Brothers gets 4 crashed squad cars out of a possible 5.

[Birthdays] Happy Birthday Frank Herbert!

Image via Wikipedia

October 8 is many things, but for fans of The Dune Saga, today happens to be the birthday of the creator of this rich and compelling universe, Frank Herbert. He died back in 1986, which many felt was too soon given he left all of us fans on what was essentially a cliffhanger with the end of Chapterhouse: Dune. Still, it was a pretty good ride and the 6 core Dune books remain an amazing gift to he world of science fiction.

The Dune books changed my life and really influenced many different aspects of my personality. My writing style was somewhat influenced by him and my taste in science fiction was also defined by his world-building books. It's a shame he left us so soon.

Happy Birthday, Frank Herbert! You are certainly missed.

[TV] Fringe: Season 1

I have a mixed relationship with JJ Abrams. While I've enjoyed his shows and movies here and there, at times I've felt annoyed by a lot of the things that he's become known for. Let's face it - he's become the master of the puzzling, confusing, convoluted plot as best demonstrated by the series Lost. It doesn't make it a bad show, mind you, just one that requires a lot of work to get into and something that I don't necessarily need when I want to unwind from a stressful day from work.

That sort of thinking has made me steer clear of most of his works more often than not, which can be both good and bad when you think about it. At least I don't get too caught up in the whole searching-the-web-for-clues bit, but at the same time I recognize I'm probably missing a lot of good TV or something.

On the flip side, I totally loved what he did with the Star Trek movie this year and that certainly made me pause and think twice about his creative output. And so I really had to remind myself about not judging one show by another made by the same guy and thus I came to finally watching this series.

And I don't regret one second of the entire experience.

Fringe is a show that is often compared to programs like The X-Files or The Twilight Zone at one point or another given it's focus on science fiction story concepts in the modern world.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The show pretty much follows what is called the "fringe" division of the FBI dedicated to solving crimes related to more exotic or fringe science avenues like spontaneous combustion, telepathy and superhuman abilities. Leading the charge is the very driven Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) along with former government scientist and mental patient Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble) and his son Peter (Joshua Jackson). They're also assisted by Agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) and a cow.

Every episode, they explore yet another fringe case that is ultimately related to something only known as The Pattern - some vague term for the increasing number of scientific incidents happening across the country that seems to be part of a larger plan. At the same time, many of the cases keep involving Massive Dynamic, what is pretty much the world's biggest corporation that seems to have a hand in any scientific or technological industry. The fringe team thus end up dealing with Massive Dynamic's CEO Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) who continually fends off their efforts to speak to the company's founder and Walter's former lab partner - Dr. William Bell.

The show started out interesting enough but it really started to get me hooked once the major conspiracy reveals started to come out and the whole notion of The Patterns became more and more intriguing. It's the kind of show that takes a bit of getting used to but one that is certainly worth the effort.

Stereotypically, the geek that I am fell in love with the character of Dr. Walter Bishop and all his quirks. He has so many good one-liners in the show, even if most of them are actually non sequiturs that really don't make sense if you try to view things logically. This all just goes to clearly demonstrate how much Walter has lost given his 17 years in a mental institution and thus his character growth is particularly interesting as the show progresses.

All the usual Abrams elements are certainly present but are executed in a manner that remains somewhat complicated enough to be interesting but not overly so such that it gets frustrating or annoying. There are many factions that eventually emerge in the show and the creative team did a great job of balancing the different elements in order to keep the viewers guessing while at the same time keeping things logical enough such that it all still makes sense once the "big reveal" comes along. And believe me, the reveal is more than worth it.

The first season of Fringe is an amazing piece of work and certainly a great way to bring science fiction concepts to a wider audience. It gets 5 cryptic cipher symbols out of a possible 5.

[Videos] Take Me To The Philippines

The Philippines will always be a tourist country and we invest a lot in terms of marketing ourselves as such. Nothing wrong with that - it's a rather beautiful country (current weather aside) and there's just so much to see. Given that, we've certainly seen some interesting tourist ads as part of the WOW Philippines campaign that the Department of Tourism runs, but nothing quite as appealing as this video.

One has to remember that apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas has ties to the Philippines and he's always been very proud of sharing that fact with the world. It's nice that he did this particular video, which does a great job of still capturing the general spirit of the country despite all the special effects going on.


Take me to the Philippines

[Viral Video Chart] LIPDUB - I Gotta Feeling (Comm-UQAM 2009)

Ever since I first saw Feist's "1,2,3,4", I've learned to become rather impressed with the film making skill that goes into single-shot videos. Seriously, it takes a lot of coordination and planning to pull these kinds of things off, whether or not you're actually resorting to CGI or anything like that.

And so I totally loved this video given (1) I like the song, (2) it was also taken in a single shot and (3) it's the fun kind of video that makes you think that you can do. I can so see this happening with my geek friends somehow representing all the different fandoms or something, hehehe.


#3 - LIPDUB - I Gotta Feeling (Comm-UQAM 2009)

[Comics] Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth

I've been pretty keen on (or outright obsessed with) the concept of alternate realities or parallel universes or multiverses ever since I was young. The mere thought of such a thing - that there could be other worlds than this one, but not in a geographic sense but in a temporal or dimensional sense just seemed utterly fascinating to me. It's certainly colored my own fiction writing along with influencing my taste in books, TV shows and other geeky stuff. It's a thing I guess.

Comic books have always dabbled in the realms of science fiction since they make for good story material. Throw in some superheroes along with a comical villain and you get your issue's story done for the month all thanks to some fantastical idea about time travel, secret serums or alternate realities. It's just how it works in the comic book world.

Planetary never felt like a stereotypical superhero-type comic book. In fact, issue after issue the trio dabbled a lot more in the realms of science fiction (and at times fantasy) and behaved more like Agents Mulder and Scully from the X-Files or something. I guess it's why my partner learned to like the series so much and why he knew it was something that I'd be able to get into.

Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth is one of those one-shot crossover comics that a lot of us geeks have learned to fear and love given them mixed quality of such titles. However this time around the pairing turned out to be pretty interesting given Planetary isn't your typical group to encounter in any situation.

In this title, the Planetary crew find themselves on the trail of John Black, whom they believe might have inherited abilities from his father given he had been part of Science City Zero. Of course they were right and the young black happens to have the ability to somehow warp or distort reality such that he can open dimensional gateways or transport people across dimensions. He's not in full control of his abilities and thus the stress of being chased by the trio is enough to set off his powers.

Image via Wikipedia

Thus he sends Planetary into alternate versions of Gotham City where they encounter the city's most famous mythical protector - the Batman. However given the erratic nature of Black's powers, they end up meeting many different versions of Batman covering the different eras of the long-running comic book character and his various incarnations, speech patterns, mannerisms and the like. Its both humorous and interesting at the same time and certainly makes for a fun title.

Planetary is not necessarily everyone's cup of tea - they're not necessarily a very action-packed book like most comics unless Jakita Wagner is allowed to let loose on the bad guys. And that will never be the point of the group - they're supposedly the archeologists trying to unearth the world's secret history and that's a job description that doesn't necessarily entail wide scale violence.

Thus that's how the book shines - as a rather cerebral interest piece that manages to show the many different versions of Batman in the form of different aspects of the same character but in different universes. It's simple by the standards of the science fiction story world at large, but it does make for a much meatier comic book and one that ups the bar for intelligence and thought. This is one of the reasons I eventually read the entire run of the series out of sheer curiosity.

Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth gets 4.5 versions of Batman out of a possible 5.

[Movies] Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Musicals tend to come in all shapes and sizes, figuratively speaking. Let's face it, if you're a good enough lyricist determined to tell a story through song, then you can theoretically write a musical about pretty much anything. We've seen plays dedicated to spelling bees and even some about TV talk show hosts. The possibilities are limitless.

That kind of diversity has resulted in some pretty interesting stories being told on the stage or even the silver screen. Gone are the days when musicals need only be about much older, kinder times. Oh no, these days the greater challenge is telling more and more contemporary stories through song, thus capturing the current era in a musical format.

The current movie being reviewed is precisely that, a very new take on what musicals can do or perhaps just an update of a very old theme.

Repo! The Genetic Opera is a rock opera / musical film set in the year 2056. After a massive epidemic of organ failures, GeneCo emerged as a radical new company that offered organ transplants to the needy via highly affordable insurance-style payment schemes. Now that everyone can get major surgeries on credit, it's triggered a cultural shift where voluntary surgery is considered cool or hip, which has made GeneCo and its owner Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) very rich and powerful. So powerful, that GeneCo can now legally repossess the organs of those who default on their payments using "Repo Men" to harvest what is owed. The only challenge facing Rotti is who to name as the heir to inherit his mega-corporation: his intelligent yet short-tempered son Luigi (Bill Moseley), his surgery-addicted daughter Amber (Paris Hilton) or his face-stealing son Pavi (Ogre).

The other aspect of this story involves a young girl named Shilo Wallace (Alexa Vega) who lives alone with her father Nathan (Anthony Stewart Head). She is suffering from a rare blood disease and it's only the medical abilities of her father that keep her alive. However given her condition, he's highly protective of her and never lets her leave the house. At the same time, Nathan has a darker secret he's hiding from his daughter - the fact that he is a Repo Man for GeneCo and has committed unspeakable acts as part of his service.

I know, I know, that seemed like an overly long summary. But despite how long that went on, you won't believe just how much more there is to the story than that. It's one of the quirks of this little piece - just how complex the entire tales turns out to be and the manner in which we as an audience learn about the full truth of things.

The movie certainly caught me by surprise with his rather passionate score that mixes influences from Phantom of the Opera, Rent, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a dash of Sweeney Todd, too. Of course I cite a lot of these plays given their strong rock music vibe, which is precisely the tone the movie tries to capture. My favorite songs tend to be the ones that involve the narrator-like character of GraveDigger (Terrance Zdunich), such as Zydrate Anatomy or the ones with the genetic opera singer, Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman) like Chase the Morning.

Of course there are other songs that seem a tad forced and sometimes downright campy, especially those involving the Largo children. I'm not sure how intentional this was, but it certainly didn't make those characters any more likable.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I have to admit that the casting choices seemed a tad unusual in the beginning but made a lot more sense in the end. Loathe as I am to admit it, but Paris actually fit her role very well and pulled it off more than decently. It was also nice to see Anthony Head in such a violent and powerful role as opposed to the mousy and downright timid typecast he developed from his years on the Buffy TV show.

This movie does have a LOT of gore, and that's to be expected from the same producers that brought us the Saw franchise of movies. The sequences that are very violent tend to become almost absurd at some points given the characters are still singing their respective songs. Thus the earlier reference to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. If you could handle that movie, then this one should be okay.

Oh, and side kudos definitely needs to go out to the animators and special effects folks. They way they rendered the city in CGI and even the comic book style scenes used to explain some of the back story were awesome in their own right and my partner and I thought that the movie still would have worked even if it had been completely animated.

Repo! The Genetic Opera gets 4 vials of freshly harvested Zydrate out of a possible 5.

[Movies] She's The Man (2006)

It was only after watching Sydney White that I started to see the potential pattern in many Amanda Bynes films. Sure, we already know she's always going to be typecast as the next evolutionary step of the hip tom boy / girl who is one of the boys as compared to the extremely frigid female intellectual of the 90's movies (think Julia Stiles).

It seems that she's certainly developed a knack for appearing in modernized versions of classic stories. In Sydney White it was the fairy tale Snow White. In this movie, she's taken the Shakespearean path that other teen movies have taken such as 10 Things I Hate About You addressing The Taming of the Shrew. This time around it's the play Twelfth Night, which made for a very interesting choice of film indeed.

She's The Man is yet another movie about high school and the need for girls to prove they're just as (or even better) than boys. Viola (Amanda Bynes) is the star player on the women's soccer team - that is until the team gets cut from the school roster. After a failed attempt to join the boy's soccer team, she then tries to figure out a way to prove to her the coach and to some extent her ex-boyfriend Justin (Robert Hoffman) that she's worthy of playing amongst the boys.

Image via Wikipedia

Opportunity lands in her lap when her twin brother Sebastian (James Kirk) has snuck off to London to compete in a contest with his rock band and leaves her behind to cover for him. Given their physical resemblance, she decides to impersonate her brother for the first few weeks of school, get into the boy's soccer team at her brother's school and compete against her home school and defeat the team that denied her. There she ends up rooming with Duke Orsino (Channing Tatum) who is also on the soccer team and is smitten by Olivia (Laura Ramsey). Viola eventually begins to fall for Duke while Duke remains in love with Olivia and Olivia seems to be falling in love with Viola in her disguise as her brother as Sebastian.

Yes, this was really based on a play by William Shakespeare. Now are you impressed?

To get it out of the way, yes, Channing Tatum remains to be a good mindless reason to watch this movie. He walks around shirtless a LOT and he's playing the classic I'm-really-a-sensitive-guy role that women seem to love. Plus there are all the classic moments of Channing starting to get attracted to Amanda disguised as a boy then freaking out at the potentially homosexual feelings afoot.

Beyond that bit of eye candy discussion, the movie was a pretty decent translation of the original play and would still carry its own weight without the knowledge that there was a classic play behind this whole thing. The elements included were done in a manner that made sense in modern terms but also created references to the classic comedic tale.

Plus the folks behind it managed to keep the comedy level high even by modern standards without resorting to overly slapstick or toilet humor.

Amanda was pretty decent as always and I'm glad they let her be more of a girl this time around than she has been in some of her other films. It's only after she's lived life as her brother Sebastian for a significant period of time does she really begin to exhibit stereotypically masculine behaviors.

The movie makes for good low-intelligence entertainment when you just want to park your brain with a funny movie to pass the time and with the side bonus of Channing Tatum eye candy sequences. Hooray for gratuitous shirtlessness!

She's The Man gets 4 soccer balls out of a possible 5.

[TV] True Blood: Season 1

I've never been a big fan of vampire stories. Sure, I'm never been against them either but it's just that I've never really felt the need to go out of my way to get involved with the whole mythos. If the show or movie is already there, then I'm not adverse to watching it and will still promise to finish it.

In recent years, vampires seem to have made a major comeback. Seriously, we haven't seen this much vampire love since the height of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles back in the day. I think we just move in cycles when it comes to our love of stories of the supernatural nature where vampires tend to alternate with popular support with zombies or something.

It's a weird theory, and I'm still working on it. You'll see how it'll make sense in the long run, believe me.

With vampires invading our TV screens again, I finally decided to give them a chance to see what the fuss was all about.

True Blood is a vampire TV series created by HBO and based on the The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of books by Charlaine Harris. The main premise of her vampire world is that scientists have finally come up with synthetic blood and thus vampire can now live amongst human society without the need to feed on other humans. Naturally this has been met with mixed reactions with Vampires now taking the role of the mistrusted minority.

In the Louisiana town of Bon Temps, a vampire named Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) arrives given the death of his last existing relative in the town. He meets Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who also happens to be a telepath and a waitress at a bar owned by Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell), who also has a supernatural secret of his own. Thus you get the usual small town versus the outside dynamics plus a murder mystery of a different variety.

The mystery involves a series of serial killings involving various women where the only weak connection between all of them is the fact that they were suspected to have slept with vampires and that many of them were found dead after having been with Sookie's brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten).

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Not to sound too racist, but I'm really not a fan of Southern accents. Maybe this stems more from my work in the call center industry where a lot of agents have difficulties understanding folks from the South. I don't think I'm that bad at it but naturally there's still that effort needed to interpret at times and the show tends to thrive in this environment given the Southern setting.

The characters are pretty rich in back story, which is expected from a series adapted from books, plus are pretty well fleshed-out on screen. Sure, I may not necessarily like many of the characters for who they are but then that's the point, isn't it - to make characters so real that you develop strong emotions about them?

I do love Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), who is simply fabulous as the gay cook / "drug" dealer. That man has enough attitude to take on the entire cast, vampires and all. Oh, and of course we all endure the incredibly slow, thick and red neck Jason Stackhouse since he has an extreme propensity for getting naked and being all incredibly hot. Whether or not I could actually deal with a person that slow in real life is beyond me but this is why we have television.

I eventually got more into the show towards the latter half of the season and I definitely see myself getting around to watching the second season once I've finished acquiring the last episode a little later today. I'm not going to make time for it and go out of my way and such but I will get around to it. Promise.

The first season of True Blood gets 3.5 bottles of Tru Blood (Type O) out of a possible 5.